Strip Reports
Are your voyagers taking their clothes off – or Goddess knows what else – in your ceremonies and sessions? And it can’t necessarily be brushed off lightly? Annie Boheler knows the score.
Annie’s a somatic experiencing practicioner who’s building a framework for sex positivity during a sesh.
A classmate of mine on Vital Psychedelic Training, she’s also a trained herbalist, a somatic intimacy coach, a declared anarchist and a former erotic dancer.
“There's all sorts of things that could come up,” says California’s Annie Boheler of the great unspoken topic in many therapy rooms, let alone psychedelic ones… the sexual self.
Even if we’re not ‘going there’ as such, “Someone could be like, ‘I'm gonna take off all my clothes,’ because of any reason on psychedelics,” Annie reminds us, “Like, ‘There's a bee in my clothes,’ or ‘Fuck society, I'm taking off my clothes’.”
Find out more on Annie's website www.loveagesomatics.com on Instagram @rewildingintimacy
“It could be nonsexual, but very intimate too,” sagely advises the sexuality, intimacy and relationship coach who’s learned with The Kinsey Institute, and Somatic Experiencing International.
What’s the sex positive psychedelic therapist or guide to do in this situation fraught with a heroic dose of awkwardness? Besides stay up on the trends.
The tactics Annie suggests form the basis of her upcoming sex positivity training program. They include chatting over beforehand what options you both have if, for example, the voyager wants to go one further from stripping off and start, y’know, playing with themselves (it could happen).
It doesn’t say anything about that in The Tibetan Book of the Dead (the actual one, I think it does a bit in the Leary one).
“An increased capacity, awareness, and ease with discomfort can help us feel a bit more in control of a psychedelic experience”
Such an incident could be just the beginning of a shame reinforcing downwards sex spiral. What’s the most deft response? Can you just leave them alone for ten minutes, with a gentle “I support you being yourself” like Annie offers as one option?
Or is that not safe, so you’ve made clear that it’s not the done thing in your shared holistic therapy rooms during the prep sessions?
And even the most agile surfers of inner space might struggle to navigate that little chat.
“Once again, it’s about explicitly naming it: ‘Hey, we're about to talk about something really intimate. And for you this is only our first time meeting. So you only share what you want; there’s no pressure,’ or saying, ‘I do this for my work, you know, it's very comfortable for me. And there's no problem that it seems a little bit new for you. That's okay.”
“Somatics means mind body connection in from the perspective of therapeutics, with a goal of healing or growing”
‘Attunement’ is the somatic experiencing (‘SE’) skill of “kind of being able to see and reflect this person's energy: if they’re more reserved, or they're really excited to share.”
The next-level emotional intelligence – EQ – which SE cultivates has relevant uses, says Annie.
“If we have some experience with somatics, or somatic experiencing, we've increased our internal capacity to be with emotions in general, whether they're comfortable or uncomfortable,” advises Annie, “ during a psychedelic experience, that increased capacity can allow us to have a bit more, I guess, ‘control’ – because of that awareness, and comfortability with discomfort.”
Embodiment therapies and upbeat approaches like Adrienne Maree Brown’s emergent strategy and ‘pleasure activism’ make enjoying yourself somehow socially acceptable and subversive, simultaneously: both lust and appreciation for life.
“Somatics means mind body connection in from the perspective of therapeutics, with a goal of healing or growing,” says Annie, “’Somatic experiencing’ is orienting around our senses: sensations, the temperature of the air, emotions, visualisations, any impulse to move. If we slow down enough, we can tune into these different things. There’s no right or wrong way.”